Monday, September 27, 2004

All right. There's been a lot of talk about drafts and who's going to be drafting who and why. Frankly, I'm not all that threatened. If a draft was instituted, and it was the kind of compulsory military service that can't be easily weasled out of by the middle and upper classes, it would be political suicide for whatever politician proposed it, and it would amass enough popular displeasure to immediately end whatever war the draft was drafting draftees to fight. Despite the best efforts of the Best and Brightest, Vietnam Syndrome still applies. Even President Bush, should he manage to retain his hold on power and use his new immunity from the electoral threat to institute a draft of the sweeping variety that now scares the liberal-leaning middle class, would find mass popular dissatisfaction translating into congressional disapproval -- even this cowed legislature has been known to pretend to fight the President when it is in the interests of their next election, always less than two years away for a fair number of the scum of Capitol Hill. Plus, once military service stopped being a problem merely of the poor and working-class, the easily and profitably ignorable, and becomes a problem of the consumer class, you will hear about it from the mass media -- it's extremely unlikely that at this late stage the Bush Administration will be able to drum up enough popular support for the current war(s) or any future ones to cow the people into acceptance of sacrifice in the name of a vague cause (World War I-style), or convince them of their Righteous (and Win-able) Moral Duty to Protect the World.

Now -- this is only why I'm not worried about a draft affecting people like me, the college-attending middle class. It is a very real possibility that we will see, should Bush return for Four More, the return of the draft system in which the Rich can easily buy their way out of the running.

Anyway, TalkLeft has actually done the research into who has suggested what, and they conclude that with Kerry/Edwards, there won't be a draft, and with Bush -- well, who the fuck knows. But the proposals currently before Congress and making their ways into the Inboxes of scared parents are just scare tactics -- sort of a liberal version of the Culture Wars Flag-Burning Bans that reappear every four convenient years.

Those gifted/talented kids at Pandagon have more. Their conclusions are a little different from mine, but they've been in the New York Times Magazine, so what do I know?

But should a draft become a real threat, I have a quick and easily implemented national campaign prepared that would stop the Selective Service in their tracks:
Draft the Homos!